


Life as We Know It

by DestielDestiny



Series: The Students of Regent High [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Teen Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:11:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5732299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielDestiny/pseuds/DestielDestiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kai meets Bryce in health class on their first day as freshmen at Regent High.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life as We Know It

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series of one-shots, though it can be standalone. It's unbetta'd, so please bare with me. If you see a really bad error, then pretty please point it out and I'll fix it.

It's been months since you left me.   
I'm going to Stanford, now, like we always talked about. On the outside, I'm doing great. Great school, great friends, great grades. But on the inside, I'm not great. I've missed you more than ever the past couple weeks since I started school. I've added to the ever-growing number of cuts on my arm more than I ever did when we were together.   
I miss you, Kai.  
I feel it every waking moment of every day. I feel it in my dreams, in my thoughts. You've invaded my life long after you left.   
So if you're going to leave me, just leave.   
I need you gone, Kai. Get the hell out of my head. 

 

Do you remember the first time we met? It was health class on the first day of school. We were fourteen. Tiny, frightened freshmen on our first day of big, bad high school. I sat behind you because of the teacher's insistence on an alphabetical seating chart. I'm glad for that chart now, even if I wasn't then.   
We both wanted to sit with our friends, but the cruel rows stared back at us, willing us to defy their hierarchy. Everybody took their assigned seat in a flurry of backpacks and binders and first day of school clothes.   
I noticed your hair first. It was long on top, but close cut on the sides. You'd bleached the top a lighter blond than the rest. I didn't know it yet, but the style suited you well, especially when you would run your hand through your hair, frustrated.   
You had soft features, a way of looking at things with always-open eyes.   
The teacher began to call role. I learned your name then. It was nice. Kai; a name I could get behind. I was behind.   
He called my name next, but I was still distracted by the beauty that was the back of your head.   
The teacher talked about health, and wellness, and acceptance for a while. Towards the end of class, he said something about the classroom being a safe place and how we could say anything we'd like.   
Then he asked anybody who identified as gay or lesbian to stand.   
Neither of us stood, but several of our classmates surrounding us did.   
Of course I didn't stand. I still had a girlfriend then. Sam, remember? She was damn near perfect, but she wasn't you. She broke up with me halfway through freshmen year because she thought I was in love with you.   
You didn't stand either, which to this day confuses me. Did you not want anyone to know? Were you ashamed? I guess I'll never know.   
But back to those around us.   
We must have gotten the class with every last homosexual freshman because there were six of them, not including us, in that health class. Five boys and one girl.   
None of them were really people we hung out with yet, but we slowly started to. It was fun because we were learning to become proper people. Or, at least, I was. You couldn't seem to overcome your shyness for so long I thought you would never speak.   
But you did, eventually. It took a few weeks before I finally weaseled a "hello" out of you. On the inside, I was elated. I wanted to scream it to the world around me that you could speak and were talking to me, but I didn't. Instead, I smiled and said hello back. You turned around in your seat and went back to filling out the "getting to know you" worksheet the teacher had handed out.   
I kept getting distracted and only finished about half of it in the eighty minutes we'd had to work on it. I had to take it home that night and work on it for homework.   
The day after that, I saw you at lunch sitting alone in the courtyard. I caught your eyes from across the way and you smiled at me. I waved you over to sit with my friends and me, but you shook your head no.   
I couldn't very well eat knowing that you were alone and I was at fault, so I went and sat with you.   
"What are you doing here?" You asked me.   
I chuckled, "Eating lunch. What does it look like?"   
"I know that, but why are you eating lunch over here?" You ran your hand through the hair on the top of your head.   
I caught myself staring at you, and turned red. "I thought you needed a friend."   
"You have friends."   
"I know I do, but where are yours?"   
You looked at me for a long time. There were tears beginning to well up in your beautiful blue-green eyes. I knew about my tendencies to make a big deal out of everything, but for some reason, it hadn't yet struck me that this wasn't a big deal to you.   
"I'm fine."  
"Have you eaten alone every day?"  
"I ate in my English class on the first day."  
"No."  
"It's true." He squinted at me. "You sit behind me in health, right? What's your name again?"  
"I'm Bryce." And you're gorgeous. But I kept the last part to myself. 

 

The first time you were sick was January of freshman year. Nobody noticed until they called roll and you didn't answer. I noticed immediately. Your blond head wasn't where it should be, and I was stuck staring at Quig Johnson's numbskull. I almost had a heart attack when I realized you weren't where you should be.   
We were friends by then. We were beginning to find our way into the group of queer kids from health class, too.   
I think that was the day I knew I was in love with you, though. I knew when I couldn't feel my hands after they'd gone numb from panic attack after subsequent panic attack. I knew in the way I wanted to do nothing but cry, and I did after asking to be excused to use the restroom. I knew by the way that I just wanted you back, even though it was just one day, and I was a big strong jock type, I couldn't make it without you.   
But I couldn't admit that to myself yet.   
It was only a few days after that when Sam broke up with me. We'd been together since the seventh grade, and then she said I'd been hanging with the wrong people so she couldn't be with me anymore.   
I assumed she didn't like you, and that's why she did it.   
You were there when she broke up with me. She'd marched over in the middle of lunch like she would and then started yelling. When I started to cry after she was finished, you wrapped your arms around my and let my cry into your shirt.   
Even after I'd finished crying and your shirt was soaked, you held me close to you like you would never let me go. We missed health class that day, but I don't think anyone ever came looking for us. I don't even think we were marked absent.   
That was the day I could admit to myself that I loved you. 

 

Through all this reminiscing, I find it hard to remind myself that you're not here. It's hard to remember that you left. I hope it was the hardest thing you've ever had to do because it was the hardest reality I've ever had to accept.   
I hated you after you left.   
The ligature marks around my neck reappeared because of you.   
My mother sent me to a psychiatric hospital because of you.   
My life sucked the summer after our senior year because of you.   
I didn't even go to our graduation. 

 

Do you remember the time I first kissed you? We weren't together yet, but I did it because it was just too hard to resist.   
We were in health class, early, as usual. I was still sitting behind you because even though it was March, the health teacher hadn't yet bothered to rearrange the seating chart.   
You were doing that really hot thing that you did with your hair, flipping it back out of your face and running it through your fingers.   
I don't remember why, but our schedule had been redone for that day. We had health first thing in the morning.   
You had this absolutely adorable sleepy look on your face. You leaned your head back so it almost touched my desk. And then, even though I shouldn't have and your face was upside down, I kissed you. Full on the mouth.   
I remember thinking about how your lips were so soft and how you were kissing back. Then I was thinking about school policy against PDAs.   
Then I remembered that I didn't care.   
The teacher was extremely oblivious, and didn't even register the chaos that erupted in his classroom until it was too late. The people we'd made friends with since September were clapping and cheering. The rest of the class was a mixture of excitement and disgust.   
And you? Well, I couldn't tell what you were. All I knew was that you didn't pull back, I did.   
You had this adorable, half smirk half true smile on your face and I melted completely.   
We got detention after school, but I didn't mind. I would have taken an F in his class if it meant I could kiss you again. 

 

I bet you don't remember. In fact, I know you don't. It's been four years. I don't even know how I remember.   
Actually, I do. It is probably the most important moment of my life so far. It is the first time I realized that I was capable of being with someone, even if that someone left and I'll never see them again.   
Goddammit Kai, just come back.   
I love you. 

 

Do you remember the time you came over to my house the summer between freshman and sophomore year? Specifically the time I got yelled at for playing music while my mom had guests.   
It started out as an ordinary study session. But then we started playing the "who can stare at the other the longest without getting caught" game. And my eyes lingered just a little too long.   
Soon enough we were on my bed having a very heated make out session. You were on top of me, pinning my shoulders to the bed. Your legs were tangled with mine. I kept hoping it wouldn't end.   
It was only our second kiss, and we still weren't technically together yet.   
I turned on Fall Out Boy at deafening volumes to tune out the noise we were making.   
My mother came crashing into the room with a vengeance and we snapped to opposite sides of the room, our heads buried in our summer homework books. She yelled for a while and left, but we both knew we couldn't continue what we were doing.   
You just smirked at me after my mother left.   
"Seems nice," you said sarcastically.   
I stuck my tongue out at you because you always thought you were funny, even when you weren't.   
"Well," you said, "there's no way I'm braving the dragon again. Can I just stay over tonight?"  
I nodded, smiling. You were actually hiding from my mother, which was probably the cutest thing anybody's done in the history of ever.   
That's how we ended up dancing to "A Thousand Years" with my headphones in for the rest of the night until we fell asleep entangled with each other on my beanbag chair.   
Why did you leave me like this? 

 

I was thinking last night about how I loved to make you smile. I started to think about how, in October of sophomore year, you started that food fight just to make me laugh.   
You got detention for that, right?   
That was also the first time I'd said "I love you" to you, albeit jokingly. Or rather, under the guise of a joke, but it really wasn't. You didn't seem phased, but our friends were stunned, as though I'd just confessed my undying love for you. Which, I guess I had.   
Do you remember throwing those Mashed potatoes at Sandra? Because I remember it like it was yesterday. You made them into a snowball-like thing in your hands and chucked across the cafeteria, where we'd started eating in June.   
Sandra screamed, and then everyone else started throwing things. We were all covered by the end, but it was completely worth it. Well, to all but you. You were pissed about it the entire rest of the day.   
So I just kissed your forehead and told you to suck it up. 

 

And then in December, around Christmas, you told your parents about why you got detention in freshman year. I'm struggling to remember why you told them, but I thought it had something to do with parent-teacher conferences. They flipped and kicked you out of the house. You were only sixteen, where did they expect you to go? It doesn't really matter, I guess, because you came to my house anyway.   
It was nearly midnight when you started banging on my door. I rushed down stairs, listening to a garbled voice on the other side of it.   
"Bryce!" You sobbed.   
It was all I could do to not cry myself.   
I opened the door to see you on your knees, pleading with me to be able to stay at my house.   
Of course I said yes. Who was I to turn you out on the streets?   
You threw your arms around my neck and planted a quick kiss on my lips, then rushed passed me. At first, I have to admit that I was stunned. It had never been you that kissed me. It was always the other way around.   
I liked it, though. It meant that you might feel the same for me.   
You were in my bedroom before I was, and in the light I could see the tear streaks on your cheeks and the tired look in your eyes. You were still as beautiful as ever, as though you were chiseled out of stone.   
You sat on my bed, staring at me, as I pulled pajamas out of a drawer. They didn't fit you, so I had to keep digging for some of the ones my brother passed down to me. You walked up behind me and wrapped your arms around my waist. I felt your nose nuzzle the skin of my neck, closely followed by the softness of your lips. It was familiar to me, yet very foreign.   
And then you started to pull my shirt over my head....   
Let's just say we did a lot that night.   
We woke up how we usually did when you spent the night at my house. You were on one side of the bed, I was on the other, and we were facing opposite directions. I don't know why we always slept like that, but we did. Though this time we woke up naked, which was entirely new. 

 

Or what about the day I finally asked you out. It was April. We were out in the courtyard after school, shoving each other like we always did. When you tripped and hit your head, my stomach clenched. I found myself on my knees beside you in an instant. I was pleading with whatever higher entity there is to make sure you didn't die.   
Your eyes were still open. You were laughing at me.   
You thought my worry was funny.   
So I said, "If you don't stop laughing I'll have to ask you out."  
And you kept laughing, saying, "I’d like to see you do that Mr. I'm a Big Brave Man."  
"Fine. You're going to a movie with me on Friday. Be there, or I don't want to see you on Mom's pizza nights anymore."  
"You wouldn't."  
"Like hell I would. I've done things with you that I probably wouldn't have done with a girlfriend, mister. We're either going to make it official or screw you."  
"Anytime, babe."   
I rolled my eyes, but I was secretly amused by you. We saw Avengers because we're both nerds, but I don't remember paying much attention to it. Do you? All I can remember for some reason is your eyes, dark and really close to mine. Weird, huh? 

 

I'd have to say my favorite was the beach in November Junior year. Four seventeen year olds and six sixteen year olds with a weekend to themselves. It was Rob's grandfather's beach cabin, remember? It took forever to convince my parents to let me go, and you had to lie to your parents, but we made it to the cabin by five o'clock Friday night. Just in time for Rob to tell us we were going to have to share a room.   
You just flashed me a look like "we would have anyway," but said nothing out loud. Rob sent us to a room with two twin beds and a window. There wasn't much else other than that. A dresser, a closet, a rug. That's it.   
As it turned out, Rob had only planned for eight of us. So we had to share a twin bed while two of the cheerleaders Rob was on the squad with shared the other one.   
We had a huge bonfire on the beach that night. All of us sat outside for hours afterwards and watched the waves crash on the sand.   
Then you had to go and ruin it with your "sex on the beach" comment.   
Or maybe you didn't ruin it, but you sure as hell didn't help how badly I wanted you to kiss me. Or I kiss you.   
The next day everybody wanted to be outside constantly. We organized a game of "honey if you love me" that got pretty crazy.   
It started with Tim Murphy batting his eyelashes at Sadie, one of the cheerleaders, and saying "Honey, if you love me will you please, please smile."   
She just scoffed and said "I'm gay," and stepped into the circle.   
Then she walked up to Nat, a girl from health class, and ran her hand down Nat's thigh. "Honey if you love me will you please, please smile."   
Nat sat there looking terrified for a moment, and before any of us knew it, they were making out, Sadie sitting in Nat's lap.   
You elbowed me. "Well that's one way to do it."   
I hissed a quick "shut up" at you as Rob picked the next person to start.   
He picked you, and you, of course, picked me.   
"Honey if you love me will you please, please smile." You tangled your fingers into your hair and bit your lip.   
"Darling, you know I love you but I just can't smile."   
I realized I meant it. I did love you. I loved you as much as a human possibly could, and I still do. You are amazing. You're perfect.   
You got really close and whispered in my ear, "I love you, too."

 

The last memory I have of you is the night everything changed. Prom night, senior year. The two of us are madly in love. You came to pick me up in your old beat up impala. I remember scolding you when you opened the door for me, telling you I was no lady. I was a manly man.   
You just laughed.   
You didn't realize it would be hours before you wouldn't laugh anymore, but then, neither did I.   
We had petitioned the school to get the policy on same sex couples at prom changed. It took us months, but they finally agreed under the terms of absolutely no PDA. The powers that be must have been remembering our freshman detention.   
We totally disregarded that policy. We were on each other constantly. I had my arm around you. Or you had your face in my neck. Or we were making out in the corner.   
"You look very handsome tonight," Sophie Burgewr said happily when she took our tickets. "Both of you, actually."  
We smiled and thanked her, then set out in search of our friends.   
Sadie brought Nat, Tim had brought some girl from his philosophy class, and Rob brought his cheerleader girlfriend.   
We'd made some excellent friends because of the stupid health class freshman are required to take. We'd gone back to sitting in the courtyard halfway through senior year when we realized being outside was much more fun when you weren't cowering in fear. Funnily enough, we were the only two of our friends who had yet to be beat up by the football team. (Rob got nailed after you left.)  
You're parents had long since come to terms with us, and had even offered to help us plan the wedding we always wanted.   
Too bad that won't happen.   
We danced for so long our feet hurt.  
I was drunk, but only a little. All of our friends were drunk off their ass. But you weren't. You offered to drive a few of us home. We were going to be okay.   
But it was late, it was prom night.  
There were so many intoxicated people driving.   
They didn't see us, the driver was over the center median. Everything was okay until it wasn't.  
They crashed into the driver's side and then you were bleeding and whispering "I'm sorry" over and over.   
Somebody eventually called 911, but I couldn't rip myself away from you.   
I remember screaming "Don't leave me, Kai! I love you!" when you stopped talking. I was clutching you, keeping you from leaving me.   
But somehow I knew you were long gone. 

Your mom was there at the hospital the next day. She hadn't been there all night like I had, but she had the matching face: dumbstruck and crying. She wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to her, the way you used to.   
Then she whispered words I didn't want to hear in my ear. "He's not going to make it. Kai's already on life support. He's going to die."   
I don't know what happened next. I probably screamed for a while, but it's all a blur. Actually, everything from there to midsummer is a blur. I remember pieces of your funeral. I remember crying and people I didn't know. I remember playing the part of the widow, which only your mom seemed to hate. I remember school being more hellish than it used to be because everything reminded me of you. 

I played prom night over in my head a million times trying to think of a way I could have stopped it. It only made it worse when I couldn't.   
I was in a downward spiral. After I told my mother I wasn't going to graduation, she had to see my cuts. I hadn't bothered to hide them anymore. She sent me to the hospital, but then let me come home after a while under the guise of "getting ready for college."  
But I didn't want to go without you. I went anyway, of course, because there's no arguing with Mom, but our friend group fell apart. The world couldn't handle an entire group of us breaking down at once. 

 

So here I am today, at Stanford. I don't want to be here without you. It's not right. It feels like I'm disgracing your memory.   
As I write this, blood drips from my forearm. I've cut for the last time. I know you're worth more than this to me. You'd think I'll of me if you saw this.   
But I've made a decision after thinking hard, writing to you. It's a sound decision. I know you'd make the same choice, Kai.   
You were always home to me. You were the thing that kept me grounded, that kept me sane. I think that people can be home, and that's exactly what you were.   
So I've made my choice.   
I'm going home to you tonight, Kai.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. If you couldn't already tell, this is an original work, not from an actual fandom, so unfortunately it's not fanfiction. You can pretend it's your favorite characters, if you like, though. This is going to be part of a series of one shots about the students at Regent High, a fictional high school I made up. Mostly, the reason behind this series is that I kept getting distracted and needed an outlet and they've been in my drafts for a while, and it's been bugging me.


End file.
